A Stranger in Our Midst

By Robert Weissberg

As the Obama administration enters its second year, I -- and undoubtedly millions of others -- have struggled to develop a shorthand term that captures our emotional unease. Defining this discomfort is tricky. I reject nearly the entire Obama agenda, but the term "being opposed" lacks an emotional punch. Nor do terms like "worried" or "anxious" apply. I was more worried about America's future during the Johnson or Carter years, so it's not that dictionary, either. Nor, for that matter, is this about backroom odious deal-making and pork, which are endemic in American politics.


After auditioning countless political terms, I finally realized that the Obama administration and its congressional collaborators almost resemble a foreign occupying force, a coterie of politically and culturally non-indigenous leaders whose rule contravenes local values rooted in our national tradition. It is as if the United States has been occupied by a foreign power, and this transcends policy objections. It is not about Obama's birthplace. It is not about race, either; millions of white Americans have had black mayors and black governors, and this unease about out-of-synch values never surfaced.


The term I settled on is "alien rule" -- based on outsider values, regardless of policy benefits -- that generates agitation. This is what bloody anti-colonial strife was all about. No doubt, millions of Indians and Africans probably grasped that expelling the British guaranteed economic ruin and even worse governance, but at least the mess would be their mess. Just travel to Afghanistan and witness American military commanders' efforts to enlist tribal elders with promises of roads, clean water, dental clinics, and all else that America can freely provide. Many of these elders probably privately prefer abject poverty to foreign occupation since it would be their poverty, run by their people, according to their sensibilities.


This disquiet was a slow realization. Awareness began with Obama's odd pre-presidency associations, decades of being oblivious to Rev. Wright's anti-American ranting, his enduring friendship with the terrorist guy-in-the-neighborhood Bill Ayers, and the Saul Alinsky-flavored anti-capitalist community activism. Further add a hazy personal background -- an Indonesian childhood, shifting official names, and a paperless-trail climb through elite educational institutions.


None of this disqualified Obama from the presidency; rather, this background just doesn't fit with the conventional political résumé. It is just the "outsider?" quality that alarms. For all the yammering about George W. Bush's privileged background, his made-in-the-USA persona was absolutely indisputable. John McCain might be embarrassed about his Naval Academy class rank and iffy combat performance, but there was never any doubt of his authenticity. Countless conservatives despised Bill Clinton, but nobody ever, ever doubted his good-old-boy American bonafides.


The suspicion that Obama is an outsider, a figure who really doesn't "get" America, grew clearer from his initial appointments. What "native" would appoint Kevin Jennings, a militant gay activist, to oversee school safety? Or permit a Marxist rabble-rouser to be a "green jobs czar"? How about an Attorney General who began by accusing Americans of cowardice when it comes to discussing race? And who can forget Obama's weird defense of his pal Louis Henry Gates from "racist" Cambridge, Massachusetts cops? If the American Revolution had never occurred and the Queen had appointed Obama Royal Governor (after his distinguished service in Kenya), a trusted locally attuned aide would have first whispered in his ear, "Mr. Governor General, here in America, we do not automatically assume that the police were at fault," and the day would have been saved.


And then there's the "we are sorry, we'll never be arrogant again" rhetoric seemingly designed for a future President of the World election campaign. What made Obama's Cairo utterances so distressing was how they grated on American cultural sensibilities. And he just doesn't notice, perhaps akin to never hearing Rev. Wright anti-American diatribes. An American president does not pander to third-world audiences by lying about the Muslim contribution to America. Imagine Ronald Reagan, or any past American president, trying to win friends by apologizing. This appeal contravenes our national character and far exceeds a momentary embarrassment about garbled syntax or poor delivery. Then there's Obama's bizarre, totally unnecessary deep bowing to foreign potentates. Americans look foreign leaders squarely in the eye and firmly shake hands; we don't bow.


But far worse is Obama's tone-deafness about American government. How can any ordinary American, even a traditional liberal, believe that jamming through unpopular, debt-expanding legislation that consumes one-sixth of our GDP, sometimes with sly side-payments and with a thin majority, will eventually be judged legitimate? This is third-world, maximum-leader-style politics. That the legislation was barely understood even by its defenders and vehemently championed by a representative of that typical American city, San Francisco, only exacerbates the strangeness. And now President Obama sides with illegal aliens over the State of Arizona, which seeks to enforce the federal immigration law to protect American citizens from marauding drug gangs and other miscreants streaming in across the Mexican border.


Reciprocal public disengagement from President Obama is strongly suggested by recent poll data on public trust in government. According to a recent Pew report, only 22% of those asked trust the government always or most of the time, among the lowest figures in half a century. And while pro-government support has been slipping for decades, the Obama presidency has sharply exacerbated this drop. To be sure, many factors (in particular the economic downturn) contribute to this decline, but remember that Obama was recently elected by an often wildly enthusiastic popular majority. The collapse of trust undoubtedly transcends policy quibbles or a sluggish economy -- it is far more consistent with a deeper alienation.


Perhaps the clearest evidence for this "foreigner in our midst" mentality is the name given our resistance -- tea parties, an image that instantly invokes the American struggle against George III, a clueless foreign ruler from central casting. This history-laden label was hardly predetermined, but it instantly stuck (as did the election of Sen. Scott Brown as "the shot heard around the world" and tea partiers dressing up in colonial-era costumes). Perhaps subconsciously, Obama does remind Americans of when the U.S. was really occupied by a foreign power. A Declaration of Independence passage may still resonate: "HE [George III] has erected a Multitude of new Offices [Czars], and sent hither Swarms of Officers [recently hired IRS agents] to harass our People, and eat out the Substance." What's next?


Robert Weissberg is Professor of Political Science-Emeritus, University of Illinois-Urbana.

US Government: Panhandler

--- by Micheal

It just came to my attention that the US government has a website where people can contribute to paying down the national debt. That debt is in the neighborhood of 13 TRILLION dollars thus far. Citizens are encouraged to donate what they can (or want to) to help poor old Uncle Sam. They will accept checks, but also credit card donations online. Check it out at www.pay.gov.

Uncle Sam has become a street person! He stands on the sidewalk with his empty cup and a cardboard sign saying "Help me pay my bills."

Now, I regularly pass beggars on the streets of Boston. Some are blatantly honest, with signs that read, "Help me get drunk," (which they usually look like they already are). Some try to sound like honest folk on hard times. "Out of work. Need food." Yeah, right.

Their problem is not necessarily a lack of money, but a lack of fiscal wisdom. Whatever money they get, they waste. In the Boston beggars' case, on booze. Even buying them a cheeseburger would not help. It would only free up a bit of their resources for more booze.

That's how I feel about Pay.gov. Our government has a totally irresponsible approach to spending. There doesn't seem to be a single stupid program they aren't eager to borrow BILLIONs to fund. If I put money in their cup, I'm only encouraging such bad behavior.

We, as a country, need to stop thinking that every personal deviation from the imagined Norman Rockwell idealized life, is the responsibility of the US Government to subsidize. It is not the government's job to make sure everyone is comfortable and happy.

The Declaration of Independence states that one of our inalienable rights is the pursuit of happiness. OUR right, not the government's obligation to provide whatever I think will make me happy. If I don't feel like working, my hunger is not the responsibility of the rest of the nation. If I just want to spend all my money on getting drunk, it is not the government's job to keep me fed and housed and healthy while I drink myself to death.

I am already subsidizing the US government's irresponsible spending habits, (through no choice of my own) through taxes. I am sure not going to encourage their lack of discipline with donations.

New Hampshire-A Banana Republic???

MANCHESTER, NH- John Stephen, Republican candidate for Governor, today blasted the efforts of Governor John Lynch and his Insurance Department (DOI) to absorb the Joint Underwriting Association (JUA) through the rulemaking process. Lynch had planned to take $110 million from the fund, created with private money to stabilize medical malpractice rates, to balance the state's budget for fiscal years 2009, 2010 and 2011. However, in January, the Supreme Court ruled that the state did not have a right to take the money. Since then, Lynch has continued to suggest that, despite the Court's ruling, the state should still be able to take the funds from medical professionals, culminating with yesterday's move to have the DOI take control of the JUA.
"Governor Lynch's bold cash grab of the funds belonging to JUA policyholders is an outrage," Stephen said. "He is ignoring both the Supreme Court's ruling as well as the property rights of the many doctors and nurses who have paid into this fund in his effort to get his hands on this money by any means necessary. This is the type of behavior we would expect from some banana republic like Venezuela, certainly not from the 'Live Free or Die' state. Every citizen ought to be as outraged over Governor Lynch's cavalier attitude and unvarnished contempt for both the rule of law and the integrity of private property rights. We need leaders who respect property rights as well as the rule of law."
Stephen said that New Hampshire voters spoke loudly and clearly about their opposition to government taking of private property with the passage of a constitutional amendment in 2006 that restricted the state's ability to take private land. The amendment received the support of 86% of the state's voters.

"New Hampshire voters will not tolerate the heavy hand of government taking away our private property," Stephen added. "The voters spoke clearly in 2006 that government needs to keep its hands off our property, but Governor Lynch, in his unbridled obsession to get money wherever he can, seems to have missed the voters' message from just four years ago. In November, our citizens will remind him that it is still wrong to take other people's belongings."

California is Ceded to the Mexican Government

By Jerry McConnell


To Mexican President Felipe Calderone:

OK. As a party of one individual American citizen, I give up! You can have California. I am sure there are MILLIONS more citizens who will agree with me.

But we reserve the right to erect a tall fence complete with triple rolls of barbed razor wire and post armed security forces at our border lines to prevent admittance of any illegal aliens into the United States.

Consider this as a warning; we will take all measures necessary to keep our country free of any intruders. You might reconsider any attempts as we are planning to copy the Mexican laws that deal with illegal aliens who try to cross into YOUR country and we WILL use them against you.

To my fellow countrymen: This could be a wonderful opportunity to really do something wonderful for our country. Imagine the benefits! Sure we might lose a bit of income taxes, but think of the HUGE amounts of tax dollar outlays we will save by not having to pay for all of these non-income producing, parasites that want EVERYTHING handed to them for FREE. We will end up saving literally billions of dollars.

Another HUGE benefit that will accrue to the newer, more streamlined, California-less United States, and that is the fungus or plague called Hollywood, with its anti-American and blaspheming morally corrupt, erroneously called “stars” that bleat and condemn and incorrectly apologize for our country for transgressions that are mostly of their own making.

What a burden that will be to get that piece of trash jettisoned from our borders without having to fire a shot. Goodbye and God Bless, Arnold, and be sure to keep another of the Kennedys with you. And won’t it feel good not to have to listen to the deranged mouths of Maxine Waters, Barbara Boxer, Dianne Feinstein, Henry Waxman, Jerry Brown; oh, I could go on and on? In fact, the more I think of this idea, the better it gets.

To Governor Arizona Governor Jan Brewer: You can keep your water if you think it might be needed in your own state. Those Californians are so quick to condemn you and your wonderful plan of enforcing illegal immigration into your state, maybe when they get their way and are being run (or over-run) by the illegal aliens (who won’t be aliens anymore) they can make their own water from the sea or buy it from Mexico.

This is probably a little too much to hope for, but it sure would be nice to accomplish. Consider the trade-off: We get rid of one of the most troubling states that will soon have no money with which to pay any taxes to the federal government; a state that will have many more millions of mouths to feed; bodies to provide healthcare and insurance to; people to house and clothe and educate and less illegal uprisings against the government.

All we lose is a whole class of troublesome and discontented complainers who don’t like the United States anyhow.

How could it go wrong?